Around the world in one day and the amazing botanical gardens of Singapore

I distinctly remember it was a close humid night in the summer of 1992 when I first set foot in Singapore. Part of a very young and energetic UCD soccer team I had just recovered from breaking my left tibia and with butterflies in my stomach, beads of sweat congregating on my brow I remember taking to the field at 7.30pm in 37 degrees hoping I wouldn't encounter any testing tackles. All turned out well I was accredited a goal in the local press which i didn't score and I came through the last 20 minutes of the game unscaved and had myself some Tiger beer that night with the boys to celebrate and a plush meal at the cricket club with our hosts!

Now I was back 17 years later. The beads of sweat quickly congregated again and I tasted the same cocktail of excitement knowing this time unlike the last I had build into my visit an entire day from which I could do what I pleased to check out this beautiful city state.

Singapore is an island microstate located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It lies 137 kilometres (85 mi) north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. Singapore is only one of four remaining true city-states in the world. It is the smallest nation in Southeast Asia and after two days of training the South Eastern Microsoft team I was looking forward to inserting my trusty 5 giant learning sponges into my 5 senses and then hit the road to harvest some new experiences to add to the database :)

The adventure for me started with the world famous night Safari. I'm not a big fan of zoo's but I decided to give this a go. It was big, very big and it holds over 1,040 animals of 120 species, of which 29% are threatened species. You can walk the park which I was told takes about 3 hours to peruse or you can take the train that sees it all in 45 minutes. I went for the latter and with the aid of an excellent guide got to see and hear about the lives of some animals I had never seen before. The mighty lion and tiger. The scavenging ant eater and the greedy hyena just to name a few. I enjoyed the trip and it would be perfect for my niece Ellen. I could see her being captivated by the clever design of the zoo and the huge variety of specimens for me though I wouldn't really write home about it! Zoos are innately sad for me and no matter what excitement I felt seeing the magnanimous animals my excitement was dampened my knowledge that they were living outside their natural habitat, despite the obvious ingenuity with the comfortability on show. It was voted as one of the top ten family experiences in the world in 2006 so it might be something you want to explore.

After 8 hours sleep I then checked out the little city. The targets I circled with the concierge in the Intercontinental hotel were: little India, little China and Arab street. Then the final destination and the one I was looking forward to the most the famous botanical gardens and the famous orchid collection.

Arab street was nearest to the hotel so after a hearty breakfast including guava juice and croissants I took my map, put on my shorts and Brazilian haviannas and went searching. Sprinkled with little shops of all sorts the area consists of 3 or 4 streets all close to the very busy Sultan's mosque which was a hive of activity when i was there. I took a few quick snaps bought a magnet for my fridge collection of Singapore flag and white glow in the dark white target and then sat it out during a down pour to take in some of the local activity over a can of coke.  From there it was off to India town at a fruit and vegetable shop that was enveloped by the classic gold jewelery stores that are everywhere in India. This really was a microcosm and mirror image of the real thing. Serais abounded in their multitude of colours. The colours walked around and were spotted by thick, curley proud moustache wearing men proudly selling all kinds of nicks and nacks that included the latest Indian news and film magazines to ornate furniture shops that sold giant wodden statues of their elephant god. After another mnsson like down pour that cleared up after 5 minutes I headed for China town. I landed outside the impressive Sri Mariamman Temple which is Singapore's oldest Hindu temple and right in the middle of the Chinese district. The front entrance door with it's numerous bells and then giant centre piece cradles of hundreds of small statues was worth the visit alone. After that it was "take me down to China town" and the shopping began. Unlike me, I bought like crazy. Mostly, gorgeous Chinese wodden boxes and silk pillow cases! It was a great day and it wasn't over.

We all know about orchids. Delicate, sublimely formed and cradles of awe and admiration. What most of us probably don't know is there are between 25,000 to 30,000 species. I remember encountering my first wild orchid in Brazil when I hiked in the Champada Dimentia national park in Bahia, Brazil. After one and a half days of walking I remember turning a mountain track and seeing two yellow orchids standing tall and proud bobbing and oscillating in the gentle frigid wind. It flowers could warble. This was the nearest thing to it. If they could smile these were beaming. Two tall slender twinkles of joy. As I jad my photo taken by some kind Korean tourists at the placard entering the botanical gardens I remembered the Brazilian orchids and I was very much looking forward to now seeing some of the best examples of them the world had to offer. The rest is in the pictures, here. 

Beijing and the curious incident of the teacher in the square

I’ve been in Beijing for 2 days and soaking it all in. I’m here to train 30 recruiters from Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzen and Taiwan how to use internet technologies to source but have arrived here 3 days early to check out the city and get on the same time zone.

So far I’ve revisited the Forbidden City of the Ming and Qing dynasties, see photos here, and this time it was not being renovated for the Olympics so I got to see the inner and outer area, the house of harmony and the amazing gardens with a little bit of extra high definition.

After the city I joined the crowd in Tenemana Square to watch the removal of the flag at 6pm in front of the huge bright world famous portrait of Chairman Mao. In a group of well over 1,000 people myself and Cristine my Microsoft colleague stuck out like soar thumbs and garnished a lot of attention. Photos were taken with babies and a very inquisitve older women who had very broken English and claimed to be an English teacher, which I’m sure she was, despite her 5 year old English standard, politely and very humbly asked us some questions:

“Where are you from?” To my surprise, she knew Ireland was beside England and small. Nothing else.

“What is your name?”

“How big is your family?”

“Why are you here?”

“What is the differences between Ireland and China?”

“Would you like to meet my son? He is my only child and studying law in Beijing University?” She then beckoned over a 6 foot tall, duffle coat wearing, muscular young man, who bowed his head courteousfully with a huge smile peering out of his round rimmed skinny spectacles.

The genuine inquistiveness continued...

“What do you eat?”

“When are you going home?” When I told her a week. She burst into laughing.

"What is your name?"

"Welcome to China!"

The brief interlude lasted about 6 or 7 minutes but it gave me a stark but clear small insight into the hunger for knowledge and self introspection that we take for granted in Ireland and we reciprocate ourselves. This women was warm and kind and wanted to know about my world. She was loving and caring and wanted to make me feel secure and at home. She wanted to share and to learn and with a beautiful smile and wonderful head bowing gesture explained to me with an invisible loud speaker the sacred words that I have learnt on all my global voygerism... my Ying for her Yang... my Harmony for her Harmony.... "You" and "I" are the same. For reminding me of that which I already knew from my travels but had departmentalised a little deeper than it should have been of late which always happens when you slip back into familarity in Ireland, I said "Bye", "Xui - Xui" and I saluted her as I left. She had reminded of that which I had forever learned in 2004 travelling the world and tatooed on my soul. She and I were the same. For her kind words and bright infectuous smile that nearly knocked Chairman Mao off his red wall I loved her as if she was one of my own.

After a walk around the beautiful square and some quick introspection and then inspection of the guarded Obelisk, the famous workers statues and a gaulk at the outside of the Chinese history museum and government buildings we headed for home which turned out to be an ordeal as if was really hard to flag any taxis down. Before we got one we passed a huge building called the “Book Building”... think of Eason’s on O’Connel street multipled by 4 in size. It was colossal and interestingly at the front of the shop was all communist rhetoric books and the best seller list which interestingly had Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope” and also Warren Buffet’s autobiography. Books very cheap. 3 euros for a book that would cost us 15 at home. The sections were long and diverse. Similar than we had back home but calligraphy, philosophy and the childrens section were noteably much deeper. I had a quick look around and saw a Harry Potter book and a Lonely Planet like travel section but very Chinese like in print and design. I didn’t get a chance to find anything on Ireland but would have loved to. We were in a hurry to catch a meal so we didn’t stay long. As I left we both started a debate about how books get censored in China before they land on the shelf. It must be a rigorous process and something I can try find out today on my travels, especially if I bump into more teachers in squares.